While i still find Soul Reaping very useful, & spend attribute points on it, i find the fact that it has no skills linked to it problematic when trying to build a hero that needs to put points in more than two other attribute areas.

Does any one actually know why it is that Soul Reaping is the only primary in the entire game that has no skills linked to it? I'm not polling whether players like or dislike this design feature, im just trying to understand why it is set up like this.

Any one have information on this? Why the big exception for soul reaping?

Synthos

28-02-2005, 07:21

Your right, the necromancer does seem to be a skill catagory short.
Its one of the few proffessions that has 3 skill catagories and the rest have 4+.

I always thought the necromancer was underpowered as a class, the life stealing spells are okay but its an unreliable source of healing. The minion spells are almost worthless, minions take too long to create and are too weak to be of any use, Death Nova seems to be the ONLY option for the minions, and it takes time to cast it on minions, hurts friendlys, and is close to impossible in PVP. All the skills almost seemed to be designed to be a secondary proffession; In my opinion skills need to be added to make this into a primary class.

Knightmare Rider

28-02-2005, 19:08

The minion spells are almost worthless, minions take too long to create and are too weak to be of any use

i beg to differ: i have seen experienced necromancers build pretty daunting armies of minions but then again im not a necro so i wouldnt know what its like being one

Buddah

28-02-2005, 21:45

i beg to differ: i have seen experienced necromancers build pretty daunting armies of minions but then again im not a necro so i wouldnt know what its like being one
Such as casting Mark of Pain on a foe that minions are attacking letting them do little damage to it but causing massive damage to other enemies that are close by.

Maybe somewhere down the line an ability or two might be linked to Soul Reaping.

goblintrain

28-02-2005, 22:18

Maybe somewhere down the line an ability or two might be linked to Soul Reaping.

Some how i doubt it. I think this particular issue will either be addressed before release, or not at all.

if u look at the other professions, & thier linked skills to primary, the discrepancy is blaring.

E: 3
Me:2
Mo:13
R: 11
W: 18

This averages out among these five professions to 9.4 skills linked to primary. Among casters, 6; among ranged casters 2.5; yet for Necro, 0.
I would like to know the thinking behind this. It makes no sense to me.

REI ONRYOU

28-02-2005, 22:34

If you think about it, what kind of Skills could you have. Not a great deal. For an attribute like Soul Reaping which is considered to be one of the strongest, Skills could only make it stronger. Perhaps they feel it would be unbalancing. The only skill I could think of would be along the lines of:

For the next 10-46 seconds, the Necromancer recieves no mana bonuses from dying units, instead, every death increases the potency of the casters death magic by 1 attribute point. This temporary death magic bonus caps at a level equal to the necromancers combined Soul Reaping + Death Magic attributes divided by three.

Synthos

28-02-2005, 22:57

If you think about it, what kind of Skills could you have. Not a great deal. For an attribute like Soul Reaping which is considered to be one of the strongest, Skills could only make it stronger. Perhaps they feel it would be unbalancing. The only skill I could think of would be along the lines of:

I agree with this post. Soul Reaping is just plain boring right now if you ask me and from my exploits on the second day with a Necro last event, Soul Reaping isn't even that useful.
Sure it can keep your energy high in PvM but in PvP it's pretty useless unless you have a LOT of points in it and in PvM I find it far too situational when you're not using minions.
Often it activates when you have near full energy for instance which is very annoying.
Right now I'd say it's underpowered compared to any class except the Mesmer who also only has 1 single skill attached to Fast Casting (which annoyingly enough does nothing on 1 sec. cast spells by the way) and while useful, it's elite.
For me there was absolutely no reason to spend points in Soul Reaping compared to spending more points in Blood Magic, Curses or an attribute of my secundary class (which if it's Warrior, Mesmer or Elementalist most likely has far better ways of conserving energy by the way...)

Synthos

28-02-2005, 23:45

I would also like to hear the reasoning behind having no skills tied to Soul Reaping, for example Fast Casting and Energy Storage seem beneficial enough but they have skills attached to it, so I don’t see why Soul Reaping would not.

You’d think Reaping someone’s soul would have more benefit then a slight energy increase. I think absorbing someone’s soul should leave you more powerful, I suggest temporarily increasing the amount of energy you can hold, Sort of like a reverse Exhaustion. I would like to also see some party oriented spells that affect your whole party/ minions.

Lady Eleni

28-02-2005, 23:54

I put these in the official suggestions thread, but I might as well put them here, too.
Reap Souls:
Cost:5
Casting Time:2
Steal 1-12 energy from target enemy and up to 2 more enemies within range.

Destroy Soul
Cost: 15
Casting Time:3
24-48% sucess rate. If this works, steal all life and energy from target enemy, if it fails, sacrifice 75% of health. This is an Elite Skill

Disposess Soul
Cost:10
Casting Time:2
This spell paralyses an opponent for 1-12 seconds, during which they do not regenerate energy, health, and do not gain any bonuses from their weapons or shields.

Goober1337

28-02-2005, 23:55

They've been focusing a bunch of time into making all the other classes equal, but not enough in getting Necro into a playable, reasonable class.

goblintrain

28-02-2005, 23:59

I agree with this post. Soul Reaping is just plain boring right now if you ask me and from my exploits on the second day with a Necro last event, Soul Reaping isn't even that useful.
Sure it can keep your energy high in PvM but in PvP it's pretty useless unless you have a LOT of points in it and in PvM I find it far too situational when you're not using minions.

This right here is an excellent reason to add skills to it.

The two simple skill ideas Nazoric posted present ways to both make it's situational aspect more predictable, & make it much more useful in PvP & smaller battles.

My suggestion presents a way Soul Reaping can be used to supercharge Death Magic.

Any more skill ideas are very welcome... keep em coming! ; )

salaboB

01-03-2005, 00:22

I like the look of your skill suggestions Peanut2232, they don't seem like they'd break things.

The skills you're suggesting are overpowered Lady Eleni: The first is stronger than the mesmer energy steal, the second is an insta-kill which just doesn't fit into GW at all (arcane echo that puppy for a 75% kill btw), and the third does too many things, including some that a skill will cause 1 of and no more (Rigor mortis, can't block...that's its only effect). The costs are also low for all the effects.

How about this one (Yeah, it shares a name with one of Peanut2232's, but it's a different skill...I just don't have time to think up a different name right now, and it fits :P):

Soul Storage:
Type: Enchantment
For the next __ seconds any soul reaping bonuses that put your energy over max will add to your max energy instead of being lost, with a maximum energy gain of soul reaping * __.

goblintrain

01-03-2005, 00:36

Ok, im gonna move the skills posted on my thread over here, cus methinks when a mod sees these two threads coupled together they are gonna go postal, & we might as well just continue with this line of discussion instead.

For the next 10-46 seconds, the Necromancer recieves no mana bonuses from dying units, instead, every death increases the potency of the casters death magic by 1 attribute point. This temporary death magic bonus caps at a level equal to the necromancers combined Soul Reaping + Death Magic attributes divided by three.

Ok, im gonna move the skills posted on my thread over here, cus methinks when a mod sees these two threads coupled together they are gonna go postal, & we might as well just continue with this line of discussion instead.

*urge to kill rising ... Rising ... RISING ...*

Just kidding :). C'mon, we don't go postal ... usually :p. I actually merged them back together; really they go hand in hand and having two different threads isn't really necessary.

Dreamsmith

01-03-2005, 05:53

if u look at the other professions, & thier linked skills to primary, the discrepancy is blaring.

E: 3
Me:2
Mo:13
R: 11
W: 18
Err, actually, at least when comparing with elementalists or mesmers, the difference is incredibly tiny. All three of these professions have almost exactly the same number of skills linked to their primary attribute. (The difference between Necromancers and Mesmers is precisely equal to the difference between Rangers and Monks in this regard. Only the difference between Elementalists and Mesmers is smaller.) In short, half the professions in this game, indeed all the offensive casters (ignoring smiting monks, like everyone always does http://www.rpgforums.net/images/smilies/lol.gif) share this trait with necromancers to nearly the same degree.

Not sure why that's a problem, actually. Beefing up the existing skill lines would do a lot more to help necromancers than creating a new one. When Healing Signet was moved to Tactics, forcing warriors to invest in yet another skill line, they complained bitterly that it was a nerf. You guys seem to be asking to be nerfed the same way. "We need to spread our points out more thinly, please create a new line of must-have skills!" Okay whatever... you'd actually be much, much better off if skills in the existing lines were improved instead.

Ratix0

01-03-2005, 06:08

My idea of some skills...

I wouldn't be including the times/cost, just a rough idea on how it'll work...

Enchantment/Stance: You get -0...-6 in soul reaping but +0...+2 in all other attributes for X...Y seconds. (Elite)

Enchantment/Stance: Instead of gaining energy when a creature dies, you gain 0...36 health when the creature dies.

Hex Spell: For the next X...Y(Where X is bigger then Y) seconds, if the hexed foe dies, you gain 2...14 energy.

The hex spell is a nice example of upping your attribute doesn't equilivant to a definately stronger spell, it can be stronger, but harder to trigger because the time is smaller. This trait is common in quite a number of necro skills(Sacing life to be exact, some skills sac more life when at higher level but doesn't change the effectivness of the skill).

Nazoric

01-03-2005, 06:15

Not sure why that's a problem, actually. Beefing up the existing skill lines would do a lot more to help necromancers than creating a new one. When Healing Signet was moved to Tactics, forcing warriors to invest in yet another skill line, they complained bitterly that it was a nerf. You guys seem to be asking to be nerfed the same way. "We need to spread our points out more thinly, please create a new line of must-have skills!" Okay whatever... you'd actually be much, much better off if skills in the existing lines were improved instead.

Yes moving Healing Signet to tactics was a neft for warriors... but that does not make it a good comparison to what people are asking for here. People want new skills that would involve Soul Reaping, not to move skills that are in other areas into soul reaping. People are mearly saying the soul reaping does not have much benefit in PvP situations and it would be nice if there were some skills that allowed it to still be usefull in PvP.That way you dont have to redistribute you points when you go from PvE to PvP, or just forget it compleatly. In my opinion that what I would like anyway.

goblintrain

01-03-2005, 07:19

Err, actually, at least when comparing with elementalists or mesmers, the difference is incredibly tiny. All three of these professions have almost exactly the same number of skills linked to their primary attribute. (The difference between Necromancers and Mesmers is precisely equal to the difference between Rangers and Monks in this regard. Only the difference between Elementalists and Mesmers is smaller.) In short, half the professions in this game, indeed all the offensive casters (ignoring smiting monks, like everyone always does http://www.rpgforums.net/images/smilies/lol.gif) share this trait with necromancers to nearly the same degree.

Not sure why that's a problem, actually. Beefing up the existing skill lines would do a lot more to help necromancers than creating a new one. When Healing Signet was moved to Tactics, forcing warriors to invest in yet another skill line, they complained bitterly that it was a nerf. You guys seem to be asking to be nerfed the same way. "We need to spread our points out more thinly, please create a new line of must-have skills!" Okay whatever... you'd actually be much, much better off if skills in the existing lines were improved instead.

I do not see this as an either/or scenario. The other skill lines are not the focus of this thread, but by all means, i would hope that the existing skill lines be given the attention they need. Maybe u should open a thread on that topic, but i would just as soon jump into a sceptic tank as try to moderate that discussion! ; )

As for some how nerfing the class by adding skills to Soul Reaping, i don't see that as the case at all. Here is why. If you see no value in investing in soul reaping, then what you are probably looking for a secondary necro, & should choose a primary profession with an exclusive to primary attribute that is more attractive to you. If you wan't a primary necro profession, then you are likely planning on developing Soul Reaping, & it would be awful nice to be able to select some skills from this attribute you are investing in: every one else can.

But here is where we have a problem that damages the practical incentive to choose the Necromancer as a primary profession, especially for PvP. Soul Reaping is different from the other exclusive to primary attributes in two big ways: it is entirely situational, & it has no skills under its umbrella. The most important skills imo, are the ones that would make the energy bonus less situational, & more viable in PvP. Two skill ideas posted here that i think illustrate this exceptionally well would be Nazoric's Master of Souls, & Capture Souls. Dont get hung up on numbers here, these are just rough ideas that were posted for purposes of sharing concepts.

I use these skill ideas as examples because they follow the original intent of passive Soul Reaping, but give it versatility by minimizing different facets of it's situational design, & by making it more useful in small battles. These are hypothetical options that make Soul Reaping more attractive as an attribute investment, & useful in a much wider range of contests than passive Soul Reaping with no linked skills can support.

Does this clarify anything for you, Dreamsmith?

Tarew

01-03-2005, 10:57

The difference between Mesmers and Necromancers may be tiny (and I still think Fast Casting could use a boost as well) but the difference between Elementalists and Necromancers most certainly is not.
All of the Elementalist skills in the Energy Storage tree are VERY powerful (and 2 of them replenish your energy much more efficiently than Soul Reaping ON TOP of the highly useful passive bonus Energy Storage already gives).
I'd say that's a pretty gigantic difference actually which is strange since some Necromancer builds use at least as much energy as your average Elementalist.

I've never played a Necromancer, but a way to gain back energy as a caster when things die would seem fairly useful to me.

The Mesmer only has one skill linked to Fast Casting, and it's an elite skill that's outdone by the Elementalist elite skill Glyph of Renewal. But I don't mind because I find Fast Casting to be a useful skill in its own right.

goblintrain

02-03-2005, 18:59

The Necromancer also has 77 skills, more than any class except the Elementalist. Maybe one of the miscellaneous skills can be linked to Soul Reaping...

I've never played a Necromancer, but a way to gain back energy as a caster when things die would seem fairly useful to me.

The Mesmer only has one skill linked to Fast Casting, and it's an elite skill that's outdone by the Elementalist elite skill Glyph of Renewal. But I don't mind because I find Fast Casting to be a useful skill in its own right.

Hmmmm... ya that one would seem to fall under the Soul Reaping umbrella. For some reason, i never noticed it was an energy gain spell... always associated it with self heal for some reason -i think the term "energy" fools me from time to time.

Soul reaping can be uber rewarding, & very powerful. Unfortunately it is so situational that it is almost useless in small battles. If skills were added to soul reaping, i think the first thing they should offer is options that make energy bonuses less dependant on mass-dying so that the attribute investment is useful in a wider range of situations.

I've never played a Mesmer primary, but i always thought Fast Casting looked pretty cool, but i've noticed a lot of players are down on it. It speeds all spells cast times that are longer than 1 second if i understand correctly, & darn... that sounds very useful if u asked me! ; )

Akmon

02-03-2005, 19:38

Corrupted Minions
Enchantment
For the next __ Seconds, whenever a creature dies, your undead minions are healed for __ health

Oooo...this looks like a good one, I vote for it!

Phaeax

02-03-2005, 19:51

Hmmmm... ya that one would seem to fall under the Soul Reaping umbrella. For some reason, i never noticed it was an energy gain spell... always associated it with self heal for some reason -i think the term "energy" fools me from time to time.

Sorry, I got tricky and added the energy gain to make it fit into Soul Reaping. As it stands now, Necrotic Traversal is just fancy talk for Teleport to Bodies.

goblintrain

02-03-2005, 20:37

Sorry, I got tricky and added the energy gain to make it fit into Soul Reaping. As it stands now, Necrotic Traversal is just fancy talk for Teleport to Bodies.

Hey dude! Way to make an *** of me on my own thread u stinker! ; )

Ander Moonshadow

02-03-2005, 23:20

I fail to see the warrior's 4th useful line. Three at best, with strength, tactics and weapon mastery. On the contrary I think necromancers are one of the most powerful classes in the game, but they are quite tactical. I plan to build a necromancer after release, as one of my builds. Its skills are, aside from the elem, the best.

goblintrain

02-03-2005, 23:58

Huh? I fail to see how the warrior entered into this?

CharnelHouse

03-03-2005, 00:17

I fail to see the warrior's 4th useful line. Three at best, with strength, tactics and weapon mastery. On the contrary I think necromancers are one of the most powerful classes in the game, but they are quite tactical. I plan to build a necromancer after release, as one of my builds. Its skills are, aside from the elem, the best.

I have to agree with Ander here. I played a Nec up till the wipe and ran Soul Reaping up, and he NEVER ran out of energy. Can't speak about PvP, didn't do any, but in PvE Soul Reaping is extremely useful. You just have to be willing to get up close and gritty with the action (he was W secondary, and used sword and shield). Casting Deathly Swarm, Soul Feast, Life Siphon, and Shadow of Fear with frequency was never an energy problem. Soul Feast worked great for keeping him alive too. About the only time I ran into problems with him was when there was another Nec in the party stealing corpses.

I do not remember exactly where I saw it, but in a dev interview or something I did see them mention the fact Reaping has no skills tied to it, and AN's explanation was that it was just so damn powerful all by itself that skills tied to it would be unbalanced.

goblintrain

03-03-2005, 00:39

yes, i don't know of many folks who would deny the usefulness of Soul Reaping in PvE. It is plenty powerful in that context, no denying. The deficiency is in small scale combats, specifically a lot of PvP, & this is where a few linked skills could be implemented to make it useful in these situations too. Not more powerful. Just useful. Skills that could be used to make it less situational in these instances.

Erasmus

03-03-2005, 00:45

I fail to see the warrior's 4th useful line. Three at best, with strength, tactics and weapon mastery. On the contrary I think necromancers are one of the most powerful classes in the game, but they are quite tactical. I plan to build a necromancer after release, as one of my builds. Its skills are, aside from the elem, the best.

You just had to insert something about how Warriors are lacking didnt you?

Ander Moonshadow

03-03-2005, 20:42

i think it was in the beginning of the thread that someone said necromancers are the only ones who don't have four useful skill lines. While I feel soul reaping to definitely be useful, to me the warrior is the only one with only three (not that i feel strength is particularly useful, but this is solely my opinion, so my opinion is two) useful attribute lines.

goblintrain

03-03-2005, 23:16

Your right, the necromancer does seem to be a skill catagory short.
Its one of the few proffessions that has 3 skill catagories and the rest have 4+.

Yes, the statement was from Synthos, but it was not an absolute blanket. I opened this discussion to see if any one in the know had official word about why SR had no linked skills, & when that did not materialize we began making skill suggestions for it. However, the discussion seems to have run its course like all discussions eventually do, & lets leave it at that & not shift it into a warrior debate.

Fair enough?

Hurin66

04-03-2005, 20:49

The necromancer in GW seems to lack one thing, skills invlolving the 'death' realm, i mean yes he has life sacrifice and minion raising, but where is the whole 'death' realm set of skills. The necromancer also happens to have a weak (compared to other classes, at least in PvP) primary attribute of soul reaping.

An idea would be to create 5 or so "death" realm skills and link them to soul reaping. The skills would be very powerful if used correctly and highly hurtful to one self (like nature rituals)

Here are some ideas:

Soul Incarnation(this one has a lot of diffrent options): Death Ritual: suffer 5% dp, If you die within the next X seconds after casting this spell you are revived as a Soul, You suffer health degeneration of X(probably a rather high amount) and if you die as a soul you suffer an additional 15% dp, you cannot be resed while in soul form.

Soul Incarnation (version 2): Death Ritual: suffer 5% dp, If you die within the next X seconds after casting this spell you are revived as a Soul for X seconds and then you are forced to return to your dead body, you cannot be resed while in soul form.

Soul Incarnation (version 3): Death Ritual: suffer 5% dp, If you die within the next X seconds after casting this spell you are revived as a Soul, you gain no benefit from healing and suffer health degeneration of X, you cannot be resed while iin soul form.

Soul Incarnation (version 4): Death Ritual: suffer 5% dp, If you die within the next X seconds after casting this spell you are revived as a Soul for X seconds, you gain no benefit from healing, your health capacity is doubled, you gain X health back for every X points of damage you do, if you reach full health you are revied with your body and all your skills are disabled for X seconds.

Retribution: Death ritual: suffer 5% dp, if you die within the next X seconds, the target who inflicted the damage take X damage and becomes blind for X (not neccesrailiy blind) seconds.

The soul incarnates would not have passive health regeneration, all the 4 soul ideas are combinable and modifiable, id like to see what people think.

Hurin66

04-03-2005, 23:09

Now that i think of it The skills should probably either have high cast time, or minimum number of seconds useability time to prevent excessive abuse.

I like the idea of using the creatures diffrently but an energy reduction instead of energy gain is kind of redundant.

I also like the idea of including an arrow of regen, so instead of durations for the
'death realm' spells they could be considered a purculiar type of enchantment.

For the Soul ideas what about this:

Soul Haunting: Death ritual: suffer 5% death penelty: 10 mana? 1 arrow of regen:
While this skill is maintained you loose all energy that would other wise be gained from soul reap and all enemies near the fallen boddies take the amount of energy that would other wise be gained from soul reap X3 in shadow damage.

It just seems that there are so many more possible 'death realm' kind of options that have not been explored or thought out for necromancers.

BTW i got the soul reincarnation ideas from an RPG, where necromances who died had the special privalage of coming back to life as souls and attempting to kill enough during a limited time to regain their real bodies.

ejxits

05-03-2005, 02:16

Disposess Soul
Cost:10
Casting Time:2
This spell paralyses an opponent for 1-12 seconds, during which they do not regenerate energy, health, and do not gain any bonuses from their weapons or shields.

perhaps this should be called: posses enemy, you half-posses the target, giving the effect described above, but the person casting the spell cannot attack, cast spells, or take more than ___ (increases with more attribute points in Soul Reaping) damage to their health in one hit. If they attack, cast spells, or take enough damage, the spell ends.

Hurin66

05-03-2005, 02:23

oh no paralisys i will pass on.

I have seen it and it aint fun in a game like this.

a. its to powerful to be given to a nercomancer, who already is strong enough.
even a 1 second paralysis would be strong interupting actions etc.

kind of of the topic but if there was ever a way to put it in it would look something like this:

Turn to Stone (elite) 25mana 1 second cast time 60? recharge; for X(1-8?) seconds target touched foe is turned to stone, during this time he cannot take damage, be hexed or healed.

And this still would be overpowered proly, but this is off subject anyways.

goblintrain

05-03-2005, 03:02

Hurin,

i see that a moderator integrated your thread into my old Soul Reaping thread.
Lol, this is a combination of three different threads now!

You have some pretty creative ideas here, & i've got to say, "Death Ritual" is a great name for a spell group!

If you wouldn't mind indulging the request, can you think of a skill, "Death Ritual" or otherwise that would make Soul Reaping as an energy aid more viable in PvP? I just ask this because the fundamental position i have developed over the course of the SR discussion is that it would be nice if the energy gain related to it were easily obtained in small scale battles, & not just in PvE scale carnage. Something more active, & less situational than the passive skill?

I'm feeling like a broken record about this point, but would this interest you?

BTW, i agree about paralyses -big no no in a skill based campetitive game.

Hurin66

05-03-2005, 04:29

It just to me the whole necro concept seems to lack in the 'death' realm kind of thing.

As for the eenergy thing:
I think i good idea someone had was to have soul reap give energy regen arrows instead of an instant energy bonus (with a max of say 3 bonus arrows), for X seconds based on skill, so in PvE it wouldnt be over powering since you would most likely be at high energy all the same (but still exhastable), while in PvP it would give one a more stable source of energy with greater real benefit then a kind of all or nothing soul reap in ts current state.

astzzz

05-03-2005, 05:20

Since the ANet guys said soul reaping skills would be too powerful, how about making them elite:

Friction (elite) - (15,2,60) For 10 seconds, target foe suffers energy degeneration of 1...3 which you gain as energy regeneration. This is an elite skill.

(Soul reaping from 1 to 4 will give you one pip, 5 to 8 two pips, 9 to 12 three pips, and is capped at three pips)

Chiron's (yes, Chiron) Balance (elite) - (10,1,60) For 5...10 seconds, you and target foe combine available energy, which you both share. When Chiron's Balance ends, remaining energy is split between you and target foe. This is an elite skill.

(So, for example, if you have 15 energy, and he has 40, you both now share an energy bar that has 55 energy. If you cast something that costs 10 energy [and vice vera], now there is only 45 energy left between the two of you. If you or target is BiPed, withered, malaised, or some other skill that gives energy back in chunks or is pipped in, it adds to the bar you both share.)

Feel free to tear these apart.

Hurin66

05-03-2005, 05:27

friction already exists in ether lord, well with a minor draw back.

im not sure about the energy balance thing, sounds like a broken skill, woulb be abused 2 much i think with things like mind wrack

aya pe 001

07-03-2005, 09:52

hello mesmers only have 1 skill linked with Fast casting and it stinks mantra of recovery you lose energy everytime you cast a spell or it ends plus its on a timer now

Some how i doubt it. I think this particular issue will either be addressed before release, or not at all.

if u look at the other professions, & thier linked skills to primary, the discrepancy is blaring.

E: 3
Me:2
Mo:13
R: 11
W: 18

This averages out among these five professions to 9.4 skills linked to primary. Among casters, 6; among ranged casters 2.5; yet for Necro, 0.
I would like to know the thinking behind this. It makes no sense to me.

Suffer 5% death penalty, for 10-40 seconds the effects of soul reaping from a death are delayed for 5 seconds. Once these 5 seconds are ended you gain double energy from the reaped soul. This affects all necromancers in the instance.

This means that at the vital stage in a PvP battle (the first death) if you have a full energy bar you would have a chance to use up some energy to regain it in a short time interval. This happens at a cost of maximum energy and health. You could also use it as a 'weapon' against a necromancer heavy team by using it to delay their energy regeneration, at the cost of allowing them to regenerate double.

Suffer 5% death penalty, for 10-40 seconds the effects of soul reaping from a death are delayed for 5 seconds. Once these 5 seconds are ended you gain double energy from the reaped soul. This affects all necromancers in the instance.

This means that at the vital stage in a PvP battle (the first death) if you have a full energy bar you would have a chance to use up some energy to regain it in a short time interval. This happens at a cost of maximum energy and health. You could also use it as a 'weapon' against a necromancer heavy team by using it to delay their energy regeneration, at the cost of allowing them to regenerate double.

My thoughts on a skill.

Bravo, very nice mechanism -especially the delayed reward. I am suspecting that for something with a dp, u probably want it to have considerably longer duration, but meh... numbers are just conjecture. Beautiful way to make SR more useful in PvP!

What on earth does this thingy improve, besides energy? Afaik there are no skills linked to this attribute. I want my badges back! :)

Very interesting. But it does absolutely nothing for soul reaping. . . WEIRD!
I still want it though, I must have missed that somehow...

VampireGod

04-01-2006, 03:24

Since the problem with soul reaping is primarily in pvp, why not make a skill that is designated pvp only (perhaps an elite skill), so that us necro's have some benefit in pvp?

anyone else think this might be a good idea???

Zohariel

04-01-2006, 16:56

It almost seems redundant to comment about thread necromancy on the Necro board...

I think Soul Reaping is plenty fine without any skills. As necromancers we have a pretty good variety of skills anyway, and much like any skill if you don't find Soul Reaping's effect useful than don't bring it. However, luckily for us, it does mean that the majority of our very useful skills are stuck in three attributes as opposed to 4. It's kinda similar to the Ranger's Beast Mastery - situationally, it's useful, but you could viably run a great many builds without it.

I have to admit though, those collector's items that give boosts to SR skills are pretty messed up.

how about a spell where the necro slowly steals health form an opponent until it dies or he's interupted (easily interuptable) this could work for pvp, and adds another thing for people to look out for.

Also i'd love to see a spell like the holidays blues spell from snowball fight, that spell was so much fun. Some kind of 100% life sacrifice spell at least.